The Booing of Josh Romney

The Booing of Josh Romney

The headline: "Paul backers boo Romney son off stage." The way that the Arizona Republic originally reported the doings at the state's GOP convention:

"We cannot afford four more years of President Obama," said Josh Romney, the third of Mitt Romney's five sons. "We need someone to step in there and turn things around."

But Josh had to stop repeatedly as people booed and yelled for Paul, who has continued campaigning in the Republican primary.

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This, say Paul supporters, is a calumny -- an untruth that twists the reality of the booing. Josh Romney was not heckled off the stage. He gave his boilerplate speech, during which he was booed a couple of times -- after saying that his father was the Republican nominee, for example. The speech ended. He got applause. Then, he started telling the state delegates to elect a pro-Romney slate. And scene:

I've got to side with the Paulians on this one. "Booing off the stage" means "booing off the stage." It implies that a chastened Josh Romney had to stop his speech and head for the exit, ducking day-old fruit and molotov cocktails. But the hardcore booing only started when he held up a sheet of paper and started calling for delegate support -- something the Paul supporters believed to be verboten. Sure, their candidate only got 8.6 percent of the primary vote, so they only represented a loud minority. You can still see why they're paranoid about the way media spins them.